I handed him over, with the order, to Molly; who went into one of her tantrums at it, for she was in the midst of pastry-making. The Squire was sitting with his head bent, looking as perplexed as an owl, when I got back to the room. "Johnny--shut the door. Something has come into my mind. Do you recollect Thomas Rymer's coming up one evening, and wanting to give me a five-pound note?" "Quite well, sir." "Well; I--I am not so sure now that there's nothing in this fresh tale." I sat down; and in a low voice told him all. Of the fit of sobbing in which I had found Rymer that same night in the Ravine; and that I had known all along it _was_ the son who had done it. "Bless my heart!" cried the Squire, softly, very much taken aback. "It's that, perhaps, that has been making Rymer so ill." "He said it was slowly killing him, sir." "Mercy on him!--poor fellow! An ill-doing scapegrace of a rascal! Johnny, how thankful we ought to be when our sons turn out well, and not ill! But I think a good many turn out ill nowadays. If you should live to have sons, sir, take care how you bring them up." "I think Mr. Rymer must have tried to bring Ben up well," was my answer. "Yes; but did the mother?" retorted the Squire. "More responsibility lies with them than with the father, Johnny; and she spoilt him. Take care, sir, how you choose a wife when the time comes. And there was that miserable lot the lad fell in with at Tewkesbury! Johnny, that Cotton must be an awful blackguard." "I hope he'll live to feel it." "Look here, we must hush this up," cried the Squire, sinking his voice and glancing round the room. "I wouldn't bring fresh pain on poor Rymer for the world. You must forget that you've told me, Johnny." "Yes, that I will." "It's only a five-pound note, after all. And if it were fifty pounds, I wouldn't stir in it. No, nor for five hundred; be hanged if I would! It's not I that would bring the world about Thomas Rymer's ears. I knew his father and respected him, Johnny; though his sermons were three-quarters of an hour long, sometimes; and I respect Thomas Rymer. You and I must keep this close. And I'll make a journey to Timberdale when this snow-storm's gone, Johnny, and frighten Jelf out of his life for propagating libellous tales." That's where it ought to have ended. The worst is, "oughts" don't go for much in the world; as perhaps every reader of this paper has learned to know. When Lee appeared the next morning with the letters as usual, I went out to him. He dropped his voice to speak, as he put them in my hand. "They say Benjamin Rymer is off, sir." "Off where?" "Somewhere out of Timberdale." "Off for what?" "I don't know, sir. Jelf accused me of having carried tales there, and called me a jackass for my pains. He said that what he had told me wasn't meant to be repeated again, and I ought not to have gone telling it about, especially to the Rymers themselves; that it might not be true----"